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SARA CREWE 

OR 

WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 


THE SCRIBNER SERIES 
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 

EACH WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR 


THE MODERN VIKINGS 

By H. H. Boyesen 

SARA CREWE: Or What Happened at Miss 
y Minchin’s 

By Frances Hodgson Burnett 
WILL SHAKESPEARE’S LITT^-E LAD 
By Imogen Clark 
STORIES FOR BOYS 

By Richard Harding Davis 
HANS BRINKER, Or, the SUver Skates 
By Mary Mapes Dodge 
THE HOOSIER SCHOOL-BOY 
By Edward Eggleston 
THE COURT OF KING ARTHUR 
By William Henry Frost 
REDSKIN AND COW-BOY 
By G. a. Henty 
AT WAR WITH PONTIAC 
By Kjrk Munroe 

TOMMY TROT’S VISIT TO SANTA CLAUS 
and A CAPTURED SANTA CLAUS 

By Thomas Nelson Page 
BOYS OF ST. TIMOTHY’S 
By Arthur Stanwood Pier 
TREASURE ISLAND 

By Robert Louis Stevenson 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 






“Eat it,” said Sara, “and you will not be so hungry.” 





SARA CREWE 

OR 

WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 


BY 

FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 

>w 


ILLUSTRATED BY 

REGINALD BIRCH 


NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1916 



Copyright, 1888 , 1890 , 1897 , by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


Copyright, 1915 , by 
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 




•4 




'f- , 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


“Eat it/’ said Sara, “and you will not be so hungry’?* 

Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

“He was waiting for his master to come out to the 
carriage, and Sara stopped and spoke a few 
words to him” 64 

“The monkey seemed much interested in her re- 
marks” 84 

“He drew her small, dark head down upon his knee 

and stroked her hair” no 




I 

SARA CREWE 


OR 

WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 



SARA CREWE 

OR 

WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

In the first place, Miss Minchin lived in 
London. Her home was a large, dull, tall 
one, in a large, dull square, where all the 
houses were alike, and all the sparrows 
were alike, and where all the door-knockers 
made the same heavy sound, and on still 
days— and nearly all the days were still- 
seemed to resound through the entire row 
in which the knock was knocked. On Miss 
Minchin’s door there was a brass plate. 
On the brass plate there was described in 
black letters. 


MISS minchin’s 

SELECT SEMINARY FOR YOUNG LADIES 


3 


SARA CREWE; OR 

Little Sara Crewe never went in or out 
of the house without reading that door- 
plate and reflecting upon it. By the time 
she was twelve, she had decided that aH 
her trouble arose because, in the first place, 
she was not “Select,” and in the second, 
she was not a “Young Lady.” When she 
was eight years old, she had been brought 
to Miss Minchin as a pupil, and left with 
her. Her papa had brought her all the 
way from India. Her mamma had died 
when she was a baby, and her papa had 
kept her with him as long as he could. 
And then, finding the hot climate was 
making her very delicate, he had brought 
her to England and left her with Miss 
Minchin, to be part of the Select Seminary 
for Young Ladies. Sara, who had always 
been ^ sharp little child, who remembered 
things, recollected hearing him say that he 
had not a relative in the world that he 
4 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 


knew of, and so he was obliged to place 
her at a boarding-school, and he had heard 
Miss Minchin’s establishment spoken of 
very highly. The same day, he took Sara 
out and bought her a great many beautiful 
clothes — clothes so grand and rich that 
only a very young and inexperienced man 
would have bought them for a mite of a 
child who was to be brought up in a board- 
ing-school. But the fact was that he was 
a rash, irmocent young man, and very sad 
at the thought of parting with his little 
girl, who was all he had left to remind him 
of her beautiful mother, whom he had 
dearly loved. And he wished her to have 
everything the most fortunate little girl 
could have; and so, when the polite sales- 
women in the shops said, “Here is our very 
latest thing in hats, the plumes are exactly 
the same as those we sold to Lady Diana 
Sinclair yesterday,” he immediately bought 
5 


SARA CREWE; OR 


what was offered to him, and paid what- 
ever was asked. The consequence was that 
Sara had a most extraordinary wardrobe. 
Her dresses were silk and velvet and India 
cashmere, her hats and bonnets were cov- 
ered with bows and plumes, her small under- 
garments were adorned with real lace, and 
she returned in the cab to Miss Minchin’s 
with a doll almost as large as herself, 
dressed quite as grandly as herself, 'too. 

Then her papa gave Miss Minchin some 
money and went away, and for several days 
Sara would neither touch the doll, nor her 
breakfast, nor her dinner, nor her tea, and 
would do nothing but crouch in a small 
comer by the window and cry. She cried 
so much, indeed, that she made herself ill. 
She was a queer little child, with old-fash- 
ioned ways and strong feelings, and she 
had adored her papa, and could not be 
made to think that India and an interest- 
6 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

ing bungalow were not better for her than 
London and Miss Minchin’s Select Semi- 
nary. The instant she had entered the 
house, she had begun promptly to hate 
Miss Minchin, and to think little of Miss 
Amelia Minchin, who was smooth and 
dumpy, and lisped, and was evidently 
afraid of her older sister. Miss Minchin 
was tall, and had large, cold, fishy eyes, 
and large, cold hands, which seemed fishy, 
too, because they were damp and made 
chills run down Sara’s back when they 
touched her, as Miss Minchin pushed her 
hair off her forehead and said: 

“A most beautiful and promising little 
girl. Captain Crewe. She will be a favor- 
ite pupil; quite a favorite pupil, I see.” 

For the first year she was a favorite 
pupil; at least she was indulged a great 
deal more than was good for her. And 
when the Select Seminary went walking, 
7 


SARA CREWE; OR 

two by two, she was always decked out in 
her grandest clothes, and led by the hand, 
at the head of the genteel procession, by 
Miss Minchin herself. And when the par- 
ents of any of the pupils came, she was al- 
ways dressed and called into the parlor 
with her doll; and she used to hear Miss 
Minchin say that her father was a distin- 
guished Indian officer, and she would be 
heiress to a great fortune. That her father 
had inherited a great deal of money, Sara 
had heard before; and also that some day 
it would be hers, and that he would not 
remain long in the army, but would come 
to live in London. And every time a letter 
came, she hoped it would say he was com- 
ing, and they were to live together again. 

But about the middle of the third year 
a letter came bringing very different news. 
Because he was not a business man himself, 
her papa had given his affairs into the 
8 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

hands of a friend he trusted. The friend 
had deceived and robbed him. All the 
money was gone, no one knew exactly 
where, and the shock was so great to the 
poor, rash yoimg officer, that, being at- 
tacked by jtmgle fever shortly afterward, 
he had no strength to rally, and so died, 
leaving Sara, with no one to take care of 
her. 

Miss Minchin’s cold and fishy eyes had 
never looked so cold and fishy as they did 
when Sara went into the parlor, on being 
sent for, a few days after the letter was 
received. 

No one had said anything to the child 
about mourning, so, in her old-fashioned 
way, she had decided to find a black dress 
for herself, and had picked out a black vel- 
vet she had outgrown, and came into the 
room in it, looking the queerest little figure 
in the world, and a sad little figure too. 
9 


SARA CREWE; OR 


The dress was too short and too tight, her 
face was white, her eyes had dark rings 
around them, and her doll, wrapped in a 
piece of old black crape, was held under 
her arm. She was not a pretty child. She 
was thin, and had a weird, interesting 
little face, short black hair, and very large, 
green-gray eyes fringed all aroimd with 
heavy black lashes. 

“I am the ugliest child in the school,” 
she had said once, after staring at herself 
in the glass for some minutes. 

But there had been a clever, good- 
natured little French teacher who had said 
to the music-master: 

“Zat leetle Crewe. Vat a child! A so 
ogly beauty I Ze so large eyes ! ze so little 
spirituelle face. Waid till she grow up. 
You shall see !” 

This morning, however, in the tight, 
small black frock, she looked thinner and 
10 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

odder than ever, and her eyes were fixed 
on Miss Minchin with a queer steadiness 
as she slowly advanced into the parlor, 
clutching her doll. 

“Put your doll down!” said Miss Min- 
chin. 

“No,” said the child, “I won’t put her 
down; I want her with me. She is all I 
have. She had stayed with me all the 
time since my papa died.” 

She had never been an obedient child. 
She had had her own way ever since she 
was bom, and there was about her an air 
of silent determination under which Miss 
Minchin had always felt secretly uncom- 
fortable. And that lady felt even now 
that perhaps it would be as well not to 
insist on her point. So she looked at her 
as severely as possible. 

“You will have no time for dolls in fu- 
ture,” she said; “you will have to work and 
11 


SARA CREWE; OR 

improve yourself, and make yourself use- 
ful.” 

Sara kept the big odd eyes fixed on her 
teacher and said nothing. 

“Everything will be very different nbw,” 
Miss Minchin went on. “I sent for you 
to talk to you and make you understand. 
Your father is dead. You have no friends. 
You have no money. You have no home 
and no one to take care of you.” 

The little pale olive face twitched ner- 
vously, but the green-gray eyes did not 
move from Miss Minchin’s, and still Sara 
said nothing. 

“What are you staring at?” demanded 
Miss Minchin sharply. “Are you so stupid 
you don’t understand what I mean? I tell 
you that you are quite alone in the world, 
and have no one to do anything for you, 
imless I-^hoose to keep you here.” 

The truth was. Miss Minchin was in her 
12 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS KINCHIN’S 

worst mood. To be suddenly deprived of 
a large sum of money yearly and a show 
pupil, and to find herself with a little beg- 
gar on her hands, was more than she could 
bear with any degree of calmness. 

“Now listen to me,” she went on, “and 
remember what I say. If you work hard 
and prepare to make yourself useful in a 
few years, I shall let you stay here. You 
are only a child, but you are a sharp child, 
and you pick up things almost without 
being taught. You speak French very 
well, and in a year or so you can begin to 
help with the younger pupils. By the 
time you are fifteen you ought to be able 
to do that much at least.” 

“I can speak French better than you, 
now,” said Sara; “I always spoke it with 
my papa in India.” Which was not at all 
polite, but was painfully true; because Miss 
Minchin could not speak French at all, 
13 


SARA CREWE; OR 


and, indeed, was not in the least a clever 
person. But she was a hard, grasping 
business woman; and, after the first shock 
of disappointment, had seen that at very- 
little expense to herself she might prepare 
this clever, determined child to be very 
useful to her and save her the necessity of 
paying large salaries to teachers of lan- 
guages. 

“Don’t be impudent, or you will be 
punished,” she said. “You -will have tq^ 
improve your manners if you expect to 
earn your bread. You are not a parlor 
boarder now. Remember that if you don’t 
please me, and I send you away, you have 
no home but the street. You can go now.” 

Sara turned away. 

“Stay,” commanded Miss Minchin, 
“don’t you intend to thank me?” 

Sara turned toward her. The nervous 
twitch was to be seen again in her face, and 
she seemed to be trying to control it. 

14 


WHAT HAPPENED - AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

“What for?” she said. 

“For my kindness to you,” replied Miss 
Minchin. “For my kindness in giving you 
a home.” 

Sara went two or three steps nearer to 
her. Her thin little chest was heaving up 
and down, and she spoke in a strange, un- 
childish voice. 

“You are not kind,” she said. “You 
are not kind.” And she turned again and 
went out of the room, leaving Miss Min- 
chin staring after her strange, small figure 
in stony anger. 

The child walked up the staircase, hold- 
ing tightly to her doll; she meant to go to 
her bedroom, but at the door she was met 
by Miss Amelia, 

“You are not to go in there,” she said. 
“That is not your room now.” 

“Where is my room?” asked Sara. 

“You are to sleep in the attic next to 
the cook.” 


15 


SARA CREWE; OR 

Sara walked on. She mounted two flights 
more, and reached the door of the attic 
room, opened it and went in, shutting it 
behind her. She stood against it and 
looked about her. The room was slanting- 
roofed and whitewashed; there was a rusty 
grate, an iron bedstead, and some odd 
articles of furniture, sent up from better 
rooms below, where they had been used 
tmtil they were considered to be worn out. 
Under the skylight in the roof, which 
showed nothing but an oblong piece of dull 
gray sky, there was a battered old red 
footstool. 

Sara went to it and sat down. She was 
a queer child, as I have said before, and 
quite unlike other children. She seldom 
cried. She did not cry now. She laid her 
doll, Emily, across her knees, and put her 
face down upon her, and her arms aroimd 
her, and sat there, her little black head 
16 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MENCHIN’S 


resting on the black crape, not saying one 
word, not making one sound. 

From that day her life changed entirely. 
Sometimes she used to feel as if it must be 
another life altogether, the life of some 
other child. She was a little drudge and 
outcast; she was given her lessons at odd 
times and expected to learn without being 
taught; she was sent on errands by Miss 
Minchin, Miss Amelia and the cook. No- 
body took any notice of her except when 
they ordered her about. She was often 
kept busy all day and then sent into the 
deserted school-room with a pile of books 
to learn her lessons or practise at night. 
She had never been intimate with the other 
pupils, and soon she became so shabby 
that, taking her queer clothes together with 
her queer little ways, they began to look 
upon her as a being of another wbrld than 
17 


SARA CREWE; OR 

their own. The fact was that, as a rule. 
Miss Mmchin’s pupils were rather dull, 
matter-cf-fact young people, accustomed to 
being rich and comfortable; and Sara, with 
her elfish cleverness, her desolate life, and 
her odd habit of fixing her eyes upon them 
and staring them out of countenance, was 
too much for them. 

“She always looks as if she was finding 
you out,” said one girl, who was sly and 
given to making mischief. “I am,” said 
Sara, promptly, when she heard of it. 
“That’s what I look at them for. I like 
to know about people. I think them over 
afterward.” 

She never made any mischief herself or 
interfered with any one. She talked very 
little, did as she was told, and thought a 
great deal. Nobody knew, and in fact no- 
body cared, whether she was unhappy or 
happy, unless, perhaps, it was Emily, who 
IS 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

lived in the attic and slept on the iron bed- 
stead at night. Sara thought Emily under- 
stood her feelings, though she was only 
wax and had a habit of staring herself. 
Sara used to talk to her at night. 

“You are tfie only friend I have in the 
world,” she would say to her. “Why 
don’t you say something? Why don’t you. 
speak? Sometimes I am sure you could, 
if you would try. It ought to make you 
try, to know you are the only thing I have. 
If I were you, I should try. Why don’t 
you try?” 

It really was a very strange feeling she 
had about Emily. It arose from her being 
so desolate. She did not like to own to 
herself that her only friend, her only com- 
panion, could feel and hear nothing. She 
wanted to believe, or to pretend to believe, 
that Emily understood and sympathized 
with her, that she heard her even though 
19 


SARA CREWE; OR 

she did not speak in answer. She used to 
put her in a chair sometimes and sit oppo- 
site to her on the old red footstool, and 
stare at her and think and pretend about 
her until her own eyes would grow large 
with something which was almost like fear, 
particularly at night, when the garret was 
so still, when the only sound that was to 
be heard was the occasional squeak and 
scurry of rats in the wainscot. There were 
rat-holes in the garret, and Sara detested 
rats, and was always glad Emily was with 
her when she heard their hateful squeak 
and rush and scratching. One of her “pre- 
tends” was that Emily was a kind of good 
witch and could protect her. Poor little 
Sara! everything was “pretend” with her. 
She had a strong imagination; there, was 
almost more imagination than there was 
Sara, and her whole forlorn, uncared-for 
child-life was made up of imaginings. She 
20 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

imagined and pretended things until she 
almost believed them, and she would 
scarcely have been surprised at any re- 
markable thing that could have happened. 
So she insisted to herself that Emily under- 
stood all about her troubles and was really, 
her friend. 

“As to answering,” she used to say, “I 
don’t answer very often. I never answer 
when I can help it. When people are in- 
sulting you, there is nothing so good for 
them as not to say a word — ^just to look 
at them and think. Miss Minchin turns 
pale with rage when I do it. Miss Amelia 
looks frightened, so do the girls. They 
know you are stronger than they are, be- 
cause you are strong enough to hold in 
your rage and they are not, and they say 
stupid things they msh they hadn’t said 
afterward. There’s nothing so strong as 
rage, except what makes you hold it in — 
21 


SARA CREWE; OR 


that’s stronger. It’s a good thing not to 
answer your enemies. I scarcely ever do. 
Perhaps Emily is more like me than I am 
like myself. Perhaps she would rather not 
answer her friends, even. She keeps it all 
in her heart.” 

But though she tried to satisfy herself 
with these arguments, Sara did not find it 
easy. When, after a long, hard day, in 
which she had been sent here and there, 
sometimes on long errands, through wind 
and cold and rain; and, when she came in 
wet and hungry, had been sent out again 
because nobody chose to remember that 
she was only a child, and that her thin lit- 
tle legs might be tired, and her small body, 
clad in its forlorn, too small finery, all too 
short and too tight, might be chilled; when 
she had been given only harsh words and 
cold, slighting looks for thanks; when the 
cook had been vulgar and insolent; when 
22 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

Miss Minchin had been in her worst moods, 
and when she had seen the girls sneering 
at her among themselves and making fun 
of her poor, outgrown clothes — ^then Sara 
did not find Emily quite all that her sore, 
proud, desolate little heart needed as the 
doll sat in her little old chair and stared. 

One of these nights, when she came up 
to the garret cold, hungry, tired, and with 
a tempest raging in her small breast, 
Emily’s stare seemed so vacant, her saw- 
dust legs and arms so limp and inexpres- 
sive, that Sara lost all control over herself. 

“I shall die presently !” she said at first. 

Emily stared. 

“I can’t bear this!” said the poor child, 
trembling. “I know I shall die. I’m cold. 
I’m wet. I’m starving to death. I’ve 
walked a thousand miles to-day, and they 
have done nothing but scold me from 
morning until night. And because I could 
23 


SARA CREWE; OR 


not find that last thing they sent me for, 
they would not give me any supper. Some 
men laughed at me because my old shoes 
made me slip down in the mud. I’m cov- 
ered with mud now. And they laughed! 
Do you hear!" 

She looked at the staring glass eyes and 
complacent wax face, and suddenly a sort 
of heart-broken rage seized her. She lifted 
her little savage hand and knocked Emily 
off the chair, bursting into a passion of 
sobbing. 

“You are nothing but a doll !” she cried. 
“ Nothing but a doll — doll — doll ! You care 
for nothing. You are stuffed with sawdust. 
You never had a heart. Nothing could ever 
make you feel. You are a doll!” 

Emily lay upon the floor, with her legs 
ignominiously doubled up over her head, 
and a new flat place on the end of her nose; 
but she was still calm, even dignified. 

24 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

Sara hid her face on her arms and sobbed. 
Some rats in the wall began to fight and 
bite each other, and squeak and scramble. 
But, as I have already intimated, Sara was 
not in the habit of crying. After a while 
she stopped, and when she stopped she 
looked at Emily, who seemed to be gazing 
at her aroimd the side of one ankle, and 
acl^ually with a kind of glassy-eyed sym- 
pathy. Sara bent and picked her up. 
Remorse overtook her. 

“You can’t help being a doll,” she said, 
with a resigned sigh, “any more than those 
girls down-stairs can help not having any 
sense. We are not all alike. Perhaps you 
do yoiu: sawdust best.” 

None of Miss Minchin’s young ladies 
were very remarkable for being brilliant; 
they were select, but some of them were 
very dull, and some of them were fond of 
applying themselves to their lessons. Sara, 
25 


SARA CREWE; OR 

who snatched her lessons at all sorts of 
untimely hours from tattered and discarded 
books, and who had a htmgry craving for 
everything readable, was often severe upon 
them in her small mind. They had books 
they never read; she had no books at all. 
If she had always had something to read, 
she would not have been so lonely. She 
liked romances and history and poetry; 
she would read an3dhmg. There was a 
sentimental housemaid in the establishment 
who bought the weekly penny papers, and 
subscribed to a circulating library, from 
which she got greasy volumes containing 
stories of marquises and dukes who invari- 
ably fell in love with orange-girls and gyp- 
sies and servant-maids, and made them the 
proud brides of coronets; and Sara often 
did parts of this maid’s work so that she 
might earn the privilege of reading these 
romantic histories. There was also a fat, 
dull pupil, whose name was Ermengarde 
26 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

St. John, who was one of her resources. 
Ermengarde had an intellectual father, 
who, in his despairing desire to encourage 
his daughter, constantly sent her valuable 
and interesting books, which were a contin- 
ual source of grief to her. Sara had once 
actually found her crying over a big pack- 
age of them. 

“What is the matter with you?” she 
asked her, perhaps rather disdainfully. 

And it is just possible she would not have 
spoken to her, if she had not seen the 
books. The sight of books always gave 
Sara a hungry feeling, and she could not 
help drawing near to them if only to read 
their titles. 

“What is the matter with you?” she 
asked. 

“My papa has sent me some more 
books,” answered Ermengarde woefully, 
“and he expects me to read them.” 

“Don’t you like reading?” said Sara. 

27 


SARA CREWE; OR 

“I hate it!” replied Ermengarde St. 
John. “And he will ask me questions 
when he sees me: he will want to know 
how much I remember; how would you 
like to have to read all those?” 

“I’d like it better than anything else in 
the world,” said Sara. 

Ermengarde wiped her eyes to look at 
such a prodigy. 

“Oh, gracious!” she exclaimed. 

Sara returned the look with interest. A 
sudden plan formed itself in her sharp 
mind. i 

“Look here!” she said. “If you’ll lend 
me those books. I’ll read them and tell you 
everything that’s in them afterward, and 
I’ll tell it to you so that you will remember 
it. I know I can. The ABC children 
always remember what I tell them.” 

“ Oh, goodness ! ” said Ermengarde. “ Do 
you think you could?” 

28 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 


“I know I could,” answered Sara. “I 
like to read, and I always remember. I’ll 
take care of the books, too; they will look 
just as new as they do now, when I give 
them back to you.” 

Ermengarde put her handkerchief in her 
pocket. 

“If you’ll do that,” she said, “and if 
you’ll make me remember. I’ll give you — 
I’ll give you some money.” 

“I don’t want your money,” said Sara. 
“ I want your books — I want them.” And 
her eyes grew big and queer, and her chest 
heaved once. 

“Take them, then,” said Ermengarde; “I 
wish I wanted them, but I am not clever, 
and my father is, and he thinks I ought 
to be.” 

Sara picked up the books and marched 
off with them. But when she was at the 
door, she stopped and turned aroxmd. 

29 


SARA CREWE; OR 

“What are you going to tell your father?” 
she asked. 

“Oh,” said Ermengarde, “he needn’t 
know; he’ll think I’ve read them.” 

Sara looked down at the books; her heart 
really began to beat fast. 

“I won’t do it,” she said rather slowly, 
“if you are going to tell him lies about it — 
I don’t hke lies. Why can’t you tell him 
I read them and then told you about 
them?” 

“But he wants me to read them,” said 
Ermengarde. 

“He wants you to know what is in 
them,” said Sara; “and if I can tell it to 
you in an easy way and make you re- 
member, I should think he would like 
that.” 

“He would like it better if I read them 
myself,” replied Ermengarde. 

“He will like it, I dare say, if you learn 
30 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

anything in any way,” said Sara. “I 
should, if I were your father.” 

And though this was not. a flattering way 
of stating the case, Ermengarde was obliged 
to admit it was true, and, after a little 
more argument, gave in. And so she used 
afterward always to hand over her books 
to Sara, and Sara would carry them to her 
garret and devour them; and after she had 
read each volume, she would return it and 
tell Ermengarde about it in a way of her 
own. She had a gift for making things 
interesting. Her imagination helped her 
to make everything rather like a story, 
and she managed this matter so well that 
Miss St. John gained more information 
from her books than she would have gained 
if she had read them three times over by 
her poor stupid little self. When Sara sat 
down by her and began to tell some story 
of travel or history, she made the travellers 
31 


SA]RA CREWE; OR 

and historical people seem real; and Ermen- 
garde used to sit and regard her dramatic 
gesticulations, her thin little flushed cheeks, 
and her shining, odd eyes with amazement. 

“It sounds nicer than it seems in the 
book,” she would say. “I never cared 
about Mary, Queen of Scots, before, and I 
always hated the French Revolution, but 
you make it seem like a story.” 

“It is a story,” Sara would answer. 
“They are all stories. Everything is a 
story— everything in this world. You are 
a story— I am a story — ^Miss Minchin is a 
story. You can make a story out of any- 
thing.” 

“I can’t,” said Ermengarde. 

Sara stared at her a minute reflectively. 

“No,” she said at last. “I suppose you 
couldn’t. You are a little like Emily.” 

“Who is Emily?” 

Sara recollected herself. She knew she 
32 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS: MINCHIN’S 


was sometimes rather impolite in the can- 
dor of her remarks, and she did not want 
to be impolite to a girl who was not unkind 
— only stupid. Notwithstanding all her 
sharp little ways she had the sense to wish 
to be just to everybody. In the hours she 
spent alone, she used to argue out a great 
many curious questions with herself. One 
thing she had decided upon was, that a 
person who was clever ought to be clever 
enough not to be unjust or deliberately 
unkind to any one. Miss Minchin was un- 
just and cruel. Miss Amelia was imkind 
and spite ul, the cook was malicious and 
hasty-temp ,red — they all were stupid, and 
made her despise them, and she desired to 
be as unlike them as possible. So she 
would be as polite as she could to people 
who in the least deserved politeness. 

“Emily is — a person — I know,” she re- 
plied. 


33 


SARA CREWE; OR 


“Do you like her?” asked Ermengarde. 

“Yes, I do,” said Sara. 

Ermengarde examined her queer little 
face and figure again. She did look odd. 
She had on, that day, a faded blue plush 
skirt, which barely covered her knees, a 
brown cloth sacque, and a pair of olive- 
green stockings which Miss Minchin had 
made her piece out with black ones, so 
that they would be long enough to be kept 
on. And yet Ermengarde was beginning 
slowly to admire her. Such a forlorn, thin, 
neglected little thing as that, who could 
read and read and remember and tell you 
things so that they did not tire you all out ! 
A child who could speak French, and who 
had learned German, no one knew how! 
One could not help staring at her and feel- 
ing interested, particularly one to whom 
the simplest lesson was a trouble and a 
woe. 


34 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

“Do you like me?” said Ermengarde, 
finally, at the end of her scrutiny. 

Sara hesitated one second, then she an- 
swered: 

“I like you because you are not ill- 
natured — I like you for letting me read 
your books — I like you because you don’t 
make spiteful fun of me for what I can’t 
help. It’s not your fault that ’’ 

She pulled herself up quickly. She had 
been going to say, “that you are stupid.” 

“That what?” asked Ermengarde. 

“That you can’t learn things quickly. 
If you can’t, you can’t. If I can, why, I 
can — that’s all.” She paused a minute, 
looking at the plump face before her, and 
then, rather slowly, one of her wise, old- 
fashioned thoughts came to her. 

“Perhaps,” she said, “to be able to learn 
things quickly isn’t everything. To be 
kind is worth a good deal to other people. 
35 


SARA CREWE; OR 


If Miss Minchin knew everything on earth, 
which she doesn’t, and if she was like what 
she is now, she’d still be a detestable thing, 
and everybody would hate her. Lots of 
clever people have done harm and been 
wicked. Look at Robespierre — ^ — ” 

She stopped again and examined her 
companion’s countenance. 

“Do you remember about him?” she de- 
manded. “I believe you’ve forgotten.” 

“Well, I don’t remember all of it,” ad- 
mitted Ermengarde. 

“Well,” said Sara, with courage and de- 
termination, “I’ll tell it to you over again.” 

And she plunged once more into the gory 
records of the French Revolution, and told 
such stories of it, and made such vivid pic- 
tures of its horrors, that Miss St. John was 
afraid to go to bed afterward, and hid her 
head under the blankets when she did go, 
and shivered until she fell asleep. But 
36 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

afterward she preserved lively recollections 
of the character of Robespierre, and did 
not even forget Marie Antoinette and the 
Princess de Lamballe. 

“You know they put her head on a pike 
and danced around it,” Sara had said; 
“and she had beautiful blonde hair; and 
when I think of her, I never see her head 
on her body, but always on a pike, with 
those furious people dancing and howling.” 

Yes, it was true; to this imaginative child 
everything was a story; and the more books 
she read, the more imaginative she became. 
One of her chief entertainments was to sit 
in her garret, or walk about it, and “sup- 
pose” things. On a cold night, when she 
had not had enough to eat, she would draw 
the red footstool up before the empty 
grate, and say in the most intense voice: 

“Suppose there was a grate, wide steel 
grate here, and a great glowing fire— a 
37 


SARA CREWE; OR 


glowing fire — with beds of red-hot coal and 
lots of little dancing, flickering flames. 
Suppose there was a soft, deep rug, and 
this was a comfortable chair, all cushions 
and crimson velvet; and suppose I had a 
crimson velvet frock on, and a deep lace 
collar, like a child in a picture; and suppose 
all the rest of the room was furnished in 
lovely colors, and there were book-shelves 
full of books, which changed by magic as 
soon as you had read them; and suppose 
there was a little table here, with a snow- 
white cover on it, and little silver dishes, 
and in one there was hot, hot soup, and in 
another a roast chicken, and in another 
some raspberry-jam tarts with criss-cross 
on them, and in another some grapes; and 
suppose Emily could speak, and we could 
sit and eat our supper, and then talk and 
read; and then suppose there was a soft, 
warm bed in the comer, and when we were 
38 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

tired we could go to sleep, and sleep as long 
as we liked.” 

Sometimes, after she had supposed things 
like these for half an hour, she would feel 
almost warm, and would creep into bed 
with Emily and fall asleep with a smile on 
her face. 

“What large, downy pillows !” she would 
whisper. “What white sheets and fleecy 
blankets ! ” And she almost forgot that her 
real pillows had scarcely any feathers in 
them at all, and smelled musty, and that 
her blankets and coverlid were thin and 
full of holes. 

At another time she would “suppose” 
she was a princess, and then she would go 
about the house with an expression on her 
face which was a source of great secret an- 
noyance to Miss Minchin, because it seemed 
as if the child scarcely heard the spiteful, 
insulting things said to her, or, if she heard 
39 


SARA CREWE; OR 


them, did not care for them at all. Some- 
times, while she was in the midst of some 
harsh and cruel speech. Miss Minchin would 
find the odd, unchildish eyes fixed upon 
her with something like a proud smile in 
them. At such times she did not know 
that Sara was saying to herself: 

“You don’t know that you are saying 
these things to a princess, and that if I 
chose I could wave my hand and order you 
to execution. I only spare you because I 
am a princess, and you are a poor, stupid, 
old, vulgar thing, and don’t know any 
better.’’ 

This used to please and amuse her more 
than anything else; and queer and fanciful 
as it was, she found comfort in it, and it was 
not a bad thing for her. It really kept her 
from being made rude and malicious by 
the rudeness and malice of those about her. 

“A princess must be polite,” she said to 
40 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 


herself. And so when the servants, who 
took their tone from their mistress, were 
insolent and ordered her about, she would 
hold her head erect, and reply to them 
sometimes in a way which made them stare 
at her, it was so quaintly civil. 

“ I am a princess in rags and tatters,” she 
would think, “but I am a princess, inside. 
It would be easy to be a princess if I were 
dressed in cloth-of-gold; it is a great deal 
more of a triumph to be one all the time 
when no one knows it. There was Marie 
Antoinette: when she was in prison, and 
her throne was gone, and she had only a 
black gown on, and her hair was white, 
and they insulted her and called her the 
Widow Capet, — she was a great deal more 
like a queen then than when she was so 
gay and had everything grand. I like her 
best then. Those howling mobs of people 
did not frighten her. She was stronger 
41 


SARA CREWE; OR 

than they were, even when they cut her 
head off.” 

Once when such thoughts were passing 
through her mind, the look in her eyes so 
enraged Miss Minchin that she flew at 
Sara and boxed her ears. 

Sara awakened from her dream, started a 
little, and then broke into a laugh. 

“What are you laughing at, you bold, 
impudent child !” exclaimed Miss Minchin. 

It took Sara a few seconds to remember 
she was a princess. Her cheeks were red 
and smarting from the blows she had 
received. 

“I was thinking,” she said. 

“Beg my pardon immediately,” said 
Miss Minchin. 

“I will beg your pardon for laughing, if 
it was rude,” said Sara; “but I won’t beg 
your pardon for thinking.” 

“What were you thinking?” demanded 
42 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

Miss Minchin. ‘‘How dare you think? 
What were you thinking?'' 

This occurred in the school-room, and all 
the girls looked up from their books to 
liste^n. It always interested them when 
Miss Minchin flev/ at Sara, because Sara 
always said something queer, and never 
seemed in the least frightened. She was 
not in the least frightened now, though her 
boxed ears were scarlet, and her eyes were 
as bright as stars. 

“I was thinking," she answered gravely 
and quite politely, “that you did not know 
what you were doing." 

“That I did not know what I was doing !" 
Miss Minchin fairly gasped. 

“Yes," said Sara, “and I was thinking 
what would happen, if I were a princess and 
you boxed my ears — ^what I should do to 
you. And I was thinking that if I were 
one, you would never dare to do it, what- 
43 


SARA CREWE; OR 


ever I said or did. And I was thinking 
how surprised and frightened ycu would be 
if you suddenly found out 

She had the imagined picture so clearly 
before her eyes, that she spoke in a manner 
which had an effect even on Miss Minchin. 
It almost seemed for the moment to her 
narrow, unimaginative mind that there 
must be some real power behind this can- 
did daring. 

“What!” she exclaimed, “found out 
what?” 

“That I really was a princess,” said Sara, 
“and could do anything — ^anything I Uked.” 

“Go to your room,” cried Miss Min- 
chin breathlessly, “this instant. Leave 
the school-room. Attend to your lessons, 
young ladies.” 

Sara made a little bow. 

“Excuse me for laughing, if it was im- 
polite,” she said, and walked out of the 
44 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

room, leaving Miss Minchin in a rage and 
the girls whispering over their books. 

“I shouldn’t be at all surprised if she 
did turn out to be something,” said one 
of them. “Suppose she should!” 

That very afternoon Sara had an oppor- 
tunity of proving to herself whether she 
was really a princess or not. It was a 
dreadful afternoon. For several days it had 
rained continuously, the streets were chilly 
and sloppy; there was mud everywhere — 
sticky London mud — and over everything 
a pall of fog and drizzle. Of course there 
were several long and tiresome errands to 
be done, — there always were on days like 
this, — and Sara was sent out again and 
again, until her shabby clothes were damp 
through. The absurd old feathers on her 
forlorn hat were more draggled and absurd 
than ever, and her down-trodden shoes 
45 


SARA CREWE; OR 

were so wet they could not hold any more 
water. Added to this, she had been de< 
prived of her dinner, because Miss Minchin 
wished to punish her. She was very hun- 
gry. She was so cold and hungr^^- and tired 
that her little face had a pinched look, and 
now and then some kind-hearted person 
passing her in the crowded street glanced 
at her with sympathy. But she did not 
know that. She hurried on, trying to com- 
fort herself in that queer way of hers by 
pretending and supposing,’' — ^but really 
this time it was harder than she had ever 
found it, and once or twice she thought it 
almost made her more cold and hungry 
instead of less so. But she persevered ob- 
stinately. ‘‘Suppose I had dry clothes on,” 
she thought. “Suppose I had good shoes 
and a long, thick coat and merino stockings 
and a whole umbrella. And suppose — ^sup- 
pose, just when I was near a baker’s where 
46 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

they sold hot buns, I should find sixpence — 
which belonged to nobody. Suppose, if I 
did, I should go into the shop and buy six 
of the hottest buns, and should eat them 
all without stopping.” 

Some very odd things happen in this 
world sometimes. It certainly was an odd 
thing which happened to Sara. She had 
to cross the street just as she was saying 
this to herself — the mud was dreadful — she 
almost had to wade. She picked her way 
as carefully as she could, but she could 
not save herself much, only, in picking her 
way she had to look down at her feet and 
the mud, and in looking down — just as 
she reached the pavement — she saw some- 
thing shining in the gutter. A piece of sil- 
ver — a tiny piece trodden upon by many 
feet, but still with spirit enough to shine a 
little. Not quite a sixpence, but the next 
thing to it — a four-penny piece! In one 
47 


SARA CREWE; OR 

second it was in her cold, little red and blue 
hand. 

“Oh!” she gasped. “It is true!” 

And then, if you will believe me, she 
looked straight before her at the shop 
directly facing her. And it was a baker’s, 
and a cheerful, stout, motherly woman, 
with rosy cheeks, was just putting into 
the window a tray of delicious hot buns, — 
large, plump, shiny buns, with currants in 
them. 

It almost made Sara feel faint for a few 
seconds — the shock and the sight of the 
buns and the delightful odors of warm 
bread floating up through the baker’s cel- 
lar-window. 

She knew that she need not hesitate to 
use the little piece of money. It had evi- 
dently been lying in the mud for some 
time, and its owner was completely lost in 
the streams of passing people who crowded 
48 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

and jostled each other all through the 
day. 

“But ril go and ask the baker's woman 
if she has lost a piece of money," she said 
to herself, rather faintly. 

So she crossed the pavement and put her 
wet foot on the step of the shop; and as 
she did so she saw something which made 
her stop. 

It was a little figure more forlorn than 
her own — a little figure which was not much 
more than a bundle of rags, from which 
small, bare, red and muddy feet peeped 
out — only because the rags with which the 
wearer was trying to cover them were not 
long enough. Above the rags appeared a 
shock head of tangled hair and a dirty face, 
with big, hollow, hungry eyes. 

Sara knew they were hungry eyes the 
moment she saw them, and she felt a sud- 
den sympathy. 


49 


SARA CREWE; OR 

‘"This,” she said to herself, with a little 
sigh, ‘‘is one of the Populace — ^and she is 
hungrier than I am/' 

The child — this “one of the Populace" — 
stared up at Sara, and shuffled herself aside 
a little, so as to give her more room. She 
was used to being made to give room to 
everybody. She knew that if a policeman 
chanced to see her, he would tell her to 
“move on." 

Sara clutched her little four-penny piece., 
and hesitated a few seconds. Then she 
spoke to her. 

“Are you hungry?" she asked. 

The child shuffled herself and her rags a 
little more. 

“Ain't I jist !" she said, in a hoarse voice. 
“Jist ain't I !" 

“Haven't you had any dinner?" said 
Sara. 

“No dinner," more hoarsely still and 
50 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MESTCHEST’S 

with more shuffling, “nor yet no bre’fast — 
nor yet no supper — nor nothin’.” 

“Since when?” asked Sara. 

“Dun’no. Never got nothin’ to-day — 
nowhere. I’ve axed and axed.” 

Just to look at her made Sara more hun- 
gry and faint. But those queer little 
thoughts were at work in her brain, and 
she was talking to herself though she was 
sick at heart. 

“If I’m a princess,” she was saying — “if 
I’m a princess — ! When they were poor 
and driven from their thrones — they always 
shared — with the Populace — ^if they met one 
poorer and hungrier. They always shared. 
Buns are a penny each. If it had been six- 
pence ! I could have eaten six. It won’t 
be enough for either of us — ^but it will be 
better than nothing.” 

“Wait a minute,” she said to the beggar- 
child. She went into the shop. It was 
51 


SARA CREWE; OR 

warm and smelled delightfully. The woman 
was just going to put more hot buns in the 
window. 

“If you please,” said Sara, “have you 
lost fourpence — a silver fourpence?” And 
she held the forlorn little piece of money 
out to her. 

The woman looked at it and at her — ^at 
her intense little face and draggled, once- 
fine clothes. 

“Bless us — no,” she answered. “Did 
you find it?” 

“In the gutter,” said Sara. 

“Keep it, then,” said the woman, “It 
may have been there a week, and goodness 
knows who lost it. You could never find 
out.” 

“I know that,” said Sara, “but I thought 
I’d ask you.” 

“Not many would,” said the woman, 
looking puzzled and interested and good- 
52 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

natured all at once. “Do you want to 
buy something?” she added, as she saw 
Sara glance toward the buns. 

“Four buns, if you please,” said Sara; 
“those at a penny each.” 

The woman went to the window and put 
some in a paper bag. Sara noticed that 
she put in six. 

“I said iour, if you please,” she ex- 
plained. “I have only the fourpence.” 

“I’ll throw in two for make-weight,” 
said the woman, with her good-natured 
look. “ I dare say you can eat them some 
time. Aren’t you hungry ? ” 

A mist rose before Sara’s eyes. 

“Yes,” she answered. “I am very hun- 
gry, and I am much obliged to you for 
your kindness, and,” she was going to add, 
“there is a child outside who is hungrier 
than I am.” But just at that moment 
two or three customers came in at once 
53 


SARA CREWE; OR 

and each one seemed in a hurry, so she 
could only thank the woman again and go 
out. 

The child was still huddled up on the 
comer of the steps. She looked frightful in 
her wet and dirty rags. She was staring 
with a stupid look of suffering straight be- 
fore her, and Sara saw her suddenly draw 
the back of her roughened, black hand 
across her eyes to mb away the tears which 
seemed to have surprised her by forcing 
their way from under her lids. She was 
muttering to herself. 

Sara opened the paper bag and took out 
one of the hot buns, which had already 
warmed her cold hands a little. 

‘'See,’’ she said, putting the bun on the 
ragged lap, “that is nice and hot. Eat it, 
and you will not be so hungry.” 

The child started and stared up at her; 
then she snatched up the bun and began 
54 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

to cram it into her mouth with great wolfish 
bites. 

“Oh, my ! Oh, my Sara heard her say 
hoarsely, in wild delight. 

*^OKmyr 

Sara took out three more buns and put 
them down. 

“She is hungrier than I am,” she said to 
herself. “She’s starving.” But her hand 
trembled when she put down the fourth 
bun. “I’m not starving,” she said — and 
she put down the fifth. 

The little starving London savage was 
still snatching and devouring when she 
turned away. She was too ravenous to 
give any thanks, even if she had been 
taught politeness — ^which she had not. She 
was only a poor little wild animal. 

“Good-bye,” said Sara. 

When she reached the other side of the 
street she looked back. The child had a 
55 


SARA CREWE; OR 


bun in both hands, and had stopped in the 
middle of a bite to watch her. Sara gave 
her a little nod, and the child, after another 
stare, — a curious, longing stare, — ^jerked her 
shaggy head in response, and until Sara 
was out of sight she did not take another 
bite or even finish the one she had be- 
gun. 

At that moment the baker-woman 
glanced out of her shop-window. 

“Well, I never!” she exclaimed. “If 
that young ’un hasn’t given her buns to a 
beggar-child ! It wasn’t because she didn’t 
want them, either — well, well, she looked 
hungry enough. I’d give something to 
know what she did it for.” She stood be- 
hind her window for a few moments and 
pondered. Then her curiosity got the bet- 
ter of her. She went to the door and spoke 
to the beggar-child. 

“Who gave you those buns?” she asked 
her. 


56 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

The child nodded her head toward Sara’s 
vanishing figure. 

“What did she say?” inquired the wo- 
man. 

“Axed me if I was ’ungry,” replied the 
hoarse voice. 

“What did you say?” 

“Said I was jist!” 

“And then she came in and got buns and 
came out and gave them to you, did she?” 

The child nodded. 

“How many?” 

“Five.” 

The woman thought it over. “Left just 
one for herself,” she said, in a low voice. 
“And she could have eaten the whole six 
— I saw it in her eyes.” 

She looked after the little, draggled, far- 
away figure, and felt more disturbed in her 
usually comfortable mind than she had 
felt for many a day. 

“I wish she hadn’t gone so quick,” she 
57 


SARA CREWE; OR 

said. “I’m blest if she shouldn’t have had 
a dozen.” 

Then she turned to the child. 

“Are you hungry, yet?” she asked. 

“I’m alius ’ungry,” was the answer; 
“but ’tain’t so bad as it was.” 

“Come in here,” said the woman, and 
she held open the shop-door. 

The child got up and shuffled in. To be 
invited into a warm place full of bread 
seemed an incredible thing. She did not 
know what was going to happen; she did 
not care, even. 

“Get yourself warm,” said the woman, 
pointing to a fire in a tiny back room. 
“And, look here, — ^when you’re hard up 
for a bite of bread, you can come here and 
ask for it. I’m blest if I won’t give it to 
you for that young 'un’s sake.” 

Sara found some comfort in her remaining 
bun. It was hot; and it was a great deal 
58 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

better than nothing. She broke off small 
pieces and ate them slowly to make it last 
longer. 

“Suppose it was a magic bun,” she said, 
“and a bite was as much as a whole dinner. 
I should be over-eating myself if I went on 
like this.” 

It was dark when she reached the square 
in which Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary 
was situated; the lamps were lighted, and 
in most of the windows gleams of light 
were to be seen. It always interested Sara 
to catch glimpses of the rooms before the 
shutters were closed. She liked to imagine 
things about people who sat before the fires 
in the houses, or who bent over books at 
the tables. There was, for instance, the 
Large Family opposite. She called these 
people the Large Family — not because they 
were large, for indeed most of them were 
little, — ^but because there were so many of 
them. There were eight children in the 
59 


SARA CREWE; OR 


Large Family, and a stout, rosy mother, 
and a stout, rosy father, and a stout, rosy 
grandmamma, and any number of servants. 
The eight children were always either being 
taken out to walk, or to ride in perambula- 
tors, by comfortable nurses; or they were 
going to drive with their mamma; or they 
were fl3dng to the door in the evening to 
kiss their papa and dance around him and 
drag off his overcoat and look for packages 
in the pockets of it; or they were crowding 
about the nursery windows and looking out 
and pushing each other and laughing, — ^in 
fact they were always doing something 
which seemed enjoyable and suited to the 
tastes of a large family. Sara was quite 
attached to them, and had given them all 
names out of books. She called them the 
Montmorencys, when she did not call them 
the Large Family. The fat, fair baby with 
the lace cap was Ethelberta Beauchamp 
60 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

Montmorency; the next baby was Violet 
Cholmondely Montmorency; the little boy 
who could just stagger, and who had such 
round legs, was Sydney Cecil Vivian Mont- 
morency; and then came Lilian Evangeline, 
Guy Clarence, Maud Marian, Rosalind 
Gladys, Veronica Eustacia, and Claude 
Harold Hector. 

Next door to the Large Family lived the 
Maiden Lady, who had a companion, and 
two parrots, and a King Charles spaniel; 
but Sara was not so very fond of her, be- 
cause she did nothing in particular but talk 
to the parrots and drive out with the 
spaniel. The most interesting person of all 
lived next door to Miss Minchin herself. 
Sara called him the Indian Gentleman. 
He was an elderly gentleman who was said 
to have lived in the East Indies, and to be 
immensely rich and to have something the 
matter with his liver, — ^in fact, it had been 
61 


SARA CREWE; OR 

rumored that he had no liver at all, and 
was much inconvenienced by the fact. At 
any rate, he was very yellow and he did 
not look happy; and when he went out to 
his carriage, he was almost always wrapped 
up in shawls and overcoats, as if he were 
cold. He had a native servant who looked 
even colder than himself, and he had a 
monkey who looked colder than the native 
servant. Sara had seen the monkey sitting 
on a table, in the sun, in the parlor win- 
dow, and he always wore such a mournful 
expression that she S5mipathized with him 
deeply. 

“I dare say,” she used sometimes to 
remark to herself, “he is thinking all the 
time of cocoanut trees and of swinging by 
his tail under a tropical sun. He might 
have had a family dependent on him too, 
poor thing!” 

The native servant, whom she called the 
62 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 


Lascar, looked mournful too, but he was 
evidently very faithful to his master. 

“Perhaps he saved his master’s life in 
the Sepoy rebellion,” she thought. “They 
look as if they might have had all sorts of 
adventiures. I wish I could speak to the 
Lascar. I remember a little Hindustani.” 

And one day she actually did speak to 
him, and his start at the sound of his own 
language expressed a great deal of surprise 
and delight. He was waiting for his master 
to come out to the carriage, and Sara, who 
was going on an errand as usual, stopped 
and spoke a few words. She had a special 
gift for languages and had remembered 
enough Hindustani to niake herself under- 
stood by him. When his master came out, 
the Lascar spoke to him quickly, and the 
Indian Gentleman turned and looked at 
her curiously. And afterward the Lascar 
always greeted her with salaams of the 
63 


SARA CEWE; OR 


most profound description. And occasion- 
ally they exchanged a few words. She 
learned that it was true that the Sahib 
was very rich — that he was ill — and also 
that he had no wife nor children, and that 
England did not agree with the monkey. 

“He must be as lonely as I am,” thought 
Sara. “Being rich does not seem to make 
him happy.” , 

That evening, as she passed the windows, 
the Lascar was closing the shutters, and 
she caught a glimpse of the room inside. 
There was a bright fire glowing in the 
grate, and the Indian Gentleman was sit- 
ting before it, in a luxurious chair. The 
room was richly furnished, and looked de- 
lightfully comfortable, but the Indian Gen- 
tleman sat with his head resting on his 
hand, and looked as lonely and unhappy 
as ever. 

“Poor man !” said Sara; “I wonder what 
you are ‘supposing’?” 

64 



He was waiting for his master to come out to the carriage, and 
Sara stopped and spoke a few words to him.” 






WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

When she went into the house she met 
Miss Minchin in the hall. 

“Where have you wasted your time?” 
said Miss Minchin. “You have been out 
for hoiurs!” 

“It was so wet and muddy,” Sara an- 
swered. “It was hard to walk, because 
my shoes were so bad and slipped about so.” 

“Make no excuses,” said Miss Minchin, 
“and tell no falsehoods.” 

Sara went downstairs to the kitchen. 

“Why didn’t you stay all night?” said 
the cook. 

“Here are the things,” said Sara, and 
laid her purchases on the table. 

The cook looked over them, grumbling. 
She was in a very bad temper indeed. 

“May I have something to eat?” Sara 
asked rather faintly. 

“Tea’s over and done with,” was the 
answer. “Did you expect me to keep it 
hot for you?” 


65 


SARA CREWE; OR 


Sara was silent a second. 

“I had no dinner,” she said, and her 
voice was quite low. She made it low, be- 
cause she was afraid it would tremble. 

“There’s some bread in the pantry,” said 
the cook. “That’s all you’ll get at this 
time of day.” 

Sara went and found the bread. It was 
old and hard and dry. The cook was in 
too bad a humor to give her anything to 
eat with it. She had just been scolded by 
Miss Minchin, and it was always safe and 
easy to vent her own spite on Sara. 

Really it was hard for the child to climb 
the three long flights of stairs leading to 
her garret. She often found them long and 
steep when she was tired, but to-night it 
seemed as if she would never reach the 
top. Several times a lump rose in her 
throat and she was obliged to stop to 
rest. 


66 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

‘'I can't pretend anything more to- 
night," she said wearily to herself. “I’m 
sure I can’t. I’ll eat my bread and drink 
some water and then go to sleep, and per- 
haps a dream will come and pretend for 
me. I wonder what dreams are.’’ 

Yes, when she reached the top landing 
there were tears in her eyes, and she did 
not feel like a princess — only like a tired, 
hungry, lonely, lonely child. 

“If my papa had lived,’’ she said, “they 
would not have treated me like this. If 
my papa had lived, he would have taken 
care of me.’’ 

Then she turned the handle and opened 
the garret-door. 

Can you imagine it — can you believe it ? 
I find it hard to believe it myself. And 
Sara found it impossible; for the first few 
moments she thought something strange 
had happened to her eyes — to her mind — 
67 


SARA CREWE; OR 

that the dream had come before she had 
had time to fall asleep. 

“ Oh ! ” she exclaimed breathlessly. “ Oh ! 
It isn’t true! I know, I know it isn’t 
true ! ” And she slipped into the room and 
closed the door and locked it, and stood 
with her back against it, staring straight 
before her. 

Do you wonder ? In the grate, which had 
been empty and rusty and cold when she 
left it, but which now was blackened and 
polished up quite respectably, there was a 
glowing, blazing fire. On the hob was a 
little brass kettle, hissing and boiling; 
spread upon the floor was a warm, thick 
rug; before the fire was a folding-chair, un- 
folded and with cushions on it; by the chair 
was a small folding-table, unfolded, cov- 
ered with a white cloth, and upon it were 
spread small covered dishes, a cup and 
saucer, and a tea-pot; on the bed were 
68 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

new, warm coverings, a curious wadded 
silk robe, and some books. The little, cold, 
miserable room seemed changed into Fairy- 
land. It was actually warm and glowing. 

'‘It is bewitched said Sara. "Or I am 
bewitched. I only think I see it all; but if 
I can only keep on thinking it, I don’t care 
— I don’t care — if I can only keep it up !” 

She was afraid to move, for fear it would 
melt away. She stood with her back 
against the door and looked and looked. 
But soon she began to feel warm, and then 
she moved forward. 

"A fire that I only thought I saw surely 
wouldn’t feel warm,” she said. "It feels 
real — real.” 

She went to it and knelt before it. She 
touched the chair, the table; she lifted the 
cover of one of the dishes. There was 
something hot and savory in it — something 
delicious. The tea-pot had tea in it, ready 
69 


SARA CREWE; OR 

for the boiling water from the little kettle; 
one plate had toast on it, another, muffins. 

“It is real,” said Sara. “The fire is real 
enough to warm me; I can sit in the chair; 
the things are real enough to eat.” 

It was like a fairy story come true — ^it 
was heavenly. She went to the bed and 
touched the blankets and the wrap. They 
were real too. She opened one book, and 
on the title-page was written in a strange 
hand, “The little girl in the attic.” 

Suddenly — ^was it a strange thing for her 
to do? — Sara put her face down on the 
queer, foreign-looking quilted robe and 
burst into tears. 

“I don’t know who it is,” she said, “but 
somebody cares about me a little — some- 
body is my friend.” 

Somehow that thought warmed her more 
than the fire. She had never had a friend 
since those happy, luxurious days when she 
70 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

had had everything; and those days had 
seemed such a long way off — so far away 
as to be only Hke dreams — during these 
last years at Miss Minchin’s. 

She really cried more at this strange 
thought of having a friend — even though an 
unknown one — than she had cried over 
many of her worst troubles. 

But these tears seemed different from the 
others, for when she had wiped them away 
they did not seem to leave her eyes and 
her heart hot and smarting. 

And then imagine, if you can, what the 
rest of the evening was like. The delicious 
comfort of taking off the damp clothes and 
putting on the soft, warm, quilted robe be- 
fore the glowing fire — of slipping her cold 
feet into the luscious little wool-lined slip- 
pers she found near her chair. And then 
the hot tea and savory dishes, the cushioned 
chair and the books ! 

71 


SARA CREWE; OR 


It was just like Sara, that, once having 
found the things real, she should give her- 
self up to the enjoyment of them to the 
very utmost. She had lived such a life of 
imagining, and had found her pleasure so 
long in improbabilities, that she was quite 
equal to accepting any wonderful thing that 
happened. After she was quite warm and 
had eaten her supper and enjoyed herself 
for an hour or so, it had almost ceased to 
be surprising to her that such magical sur- 
roundings should be hers. As to finding 
out who had done all this, she knew that it 
was out of the question. She did not know 
a human soul by whom it could seem in the 
least degree probable that it could have 
been done. 

“There is nobody,’' she said to herself, 
“nobody.” She discussed the matter with 
'Emily, it is true, but more because it was 
delightful to talk about it than with a view 
to making any discoveries. 

72 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S' 

“But we have a friend, Emily,'’ she said; 
“we have a friend." 

Sara could not even imagine a being 
charming enough to fill her grand ideal of 
her mysterious benefactor. If she tried to 
make in her mind a picture of him or her, 
it ended by being something glittering and 
strange — ^not at all like a real person, but 
bearing resemblance to a sort of Eastern 
magician, vdth long robes and a wand. 
And when she fell asleep, beneath the soft 
white blaniret, she dreamed all night of this 
magnificent personage, and talked to him 
in Hindustani, and made salaams to him. 

Upon one thing she was determined. 
She would not speak to any one of her good 
fortune — ^it should be her own secret; in 
fact, she was rather inclined to think that 
if Miss Minchin knew, she would take her 
treasures from her or in some way spoil her 
pleasure. So, when she went down the 
next morning, she shut her door very tight 
73 


SARA CREWE; OR 


and did her best to look as if nothing un- 
usual had occurred. And yet this was 
rather hard, because she could not help 
remembering, every now and then, with a 
sort of start, and her heart would beat 
quickly every time she repeated to herself, 
have a friend!'' 

It was a friend who evidently meant to 
continue to be kind, for when she went to 
her garret the next night — ^and she opened 
the door, it must be confessed, with rather 
an excited feeling — ^she found that the same 
hands had been again at work, and had 
done even more than before. The fire and 
the supper were again there, and beside 
them a number of other things which so 
altered the look of the garret that Sara 
quite lost her breath. A piece of bright, 
strange, heavy cloth covered the battered 
mantel, and on it some ornaments had been 
placed. All the bare, ugly things which 
74 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 


could be covered with draperies had been 
concealed and made to look quite pretty. 
Some odd materials in rich colors had been 
fastened against the walls with sharp, fine 
tacks — so sharp that they could be pressed 
into the wood without hammering. Some 
brilliant fans were pinned up, and there 
were several large cushions. A long, old 
wooden box was covered with a rug, and 
some cushions lay on it, so that it wore 
quite the air of a sofa. 

Sara simply sat down, and looked, and 
looked again. 

“It is exactly like something fairy come 
true,” she said; “there isn’t the least differ- 
ence. I feel as if I might wish for anything 
— diamonds and bags of gold— and they 
would appear ! Thai couldn’t be any 
stranger than this. Is this my garret? 
Am I the same cold, ragged, damp Sara? 
And to think how I used to pretend, and 
75 


SARA CREWE; OR 


pretend, and wish there were fairies ! The 
one thing I always wanted was to see a 
fairy story come true. I am living in a 
fairy story ! I feel as if I might be a fairy 
myself, and be able to turn things into 
anything else!” 

It was like a fairy story, and, what was 
best of all, it continued. Almost every day 
something new was done to the garret. 
Some new comfort or ornament appeared in 
it when Sara opened her door at night, until 
actually, in a short time, it was a bright 
little room, full of all sorts of odd and 
luxurious things. And the magician had 
taken care that the child should not be 
hungry, and that she should have as many 
books as she could read. When she left 
the room in the morning, the remains of 
her supper were on the table, and when 
she returned in the evening, the magician 
had removed them, and left another nice 
76 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

little meal. Downstairs Miss Minchin was 
as cruel and insulting as ever, Miss Amelia 
was as peevish, and the servants were as 
vulgar. Sara was sent on errands, and 
scolded, and driven hither and thither, but 
somehow it seemed as if she could bear it 
all. The delightful sense of romance and 
mystery lifted her above the cook’s temper 
and malice. The comfort she enjoyed and 
could always look forward to was making 
her stronger. If she came home from her 
errands wet and tired, she knew she would 
soon be warm, after she had climbed the 
stairs. In a few weeks she began to look 
less thin. A little color came into her 
cheeks, and her eyes did not seem much 
too big for her face. 

It was just when this was beginning to 
be so apparent that Miss Minchin some- 
times stared at her questioningly, that an- 
other wonderful thing happened. A man 
77 


SARA CREWE; OR 


came to the door and left several parcels. 
All were addressed (in large letters) to 
“the little girl in the attic.” Sara herself 
was sent to open the door, and she took 
them in. She laid the two largest parcels 
down on the hall-table and was looking at 
the address, when Miss Minchin came down 
the stairs. 

“Take the things upstairs to the young 
lady to whom they belong,” she said. 
“Don’t stand there staring at them.” 

“They belong to me,” answered Sara, 
quietly. 

“To you!” exclaimed Miss Minchin. 
“What do you mean?” 

“I don’t know where they came from,” 
said Sara, “but they’re addressed to 
me.” 

Miss Minchin came to her side and looked 
at them with an excited expression. 

“What is in them?” she demanded. 

78 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

“I don’t know,” said Sara. 

“Open them!” she demanded, still more 
excitedly. 

Sara did as she was told. They con- 
tained pretty and comfortable clothing, — 
clothing of different kinds; shoes and stock- 
ings and gloves, a warm coat, and even an 
umbrella. On the pocket of the coat was 
pinned a paper on which was written, “To 
be worn every day — ^will be replaced by 
others when necessary.” 

Miss Minchin was quite agitated. This 
was an incident which suggested strange 
things to her sordid mind. Could it be 
that she had made a mistake after all, and 
that the child so neglected and so unkindly 
treated by her had some powerful friend in 
the background? It would not be very 
pleasant if there should be such a friend, 
and he or she should learn all the truth 
about the thin, shabby clothes, the scant 
79 


SARA CREWE; OR 

food, the hard work. She felt queer indeed 
and uncertain, and she gave a side-glance 
at Sara. 

'‘Well,’’ she said, in a voice such as she 
had never used since the day the child lost 
her father — "well, some one is very land 
to you. As you have the things and are 
to have new ones when they are worn out, 
you may as well go and put them on and 
look respectable; and after you are dressed, 
you may come downstairs and learn your 
lessons in the school-room.” 

So it happened that, about half an hour 
afterward, Sara struck the entire school- 
room of pupils dumb with amazement, by 
making her appearance in a costume such 
as she had never worn since the change of 
fortune whereby she ceased to be a show- 
pupil and a parlor-boarder. She scarcely 
seemed to be the same Sara. She was 
neatly dressed in a pretty gown of warm 
80 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

browns and reds, and even her stockings 
and slippers were nice and dainty. 

‘‘Perhaps some one has left her a for- 
tune, ’’’one of the girls whispered. “I al- 
ways thought something would happen to 
her, she is so queer.” 

That night when Sara went to her room 
she carried out a plan she had been devising 
for some time. She wrote a note to her 
unknown friend. It ran as follows: 

I hope you will not think it is not polite 
that I should write this note to you when you 
wish to keep yourself a secret, but I do not 
mean to be impolite, or to try to find out at all, 
only I want to thank you for being so kind to 
me — so beautiful kind, and making everything 
like a fairy story. I am so grateful to you and 
I am so happy ! I used to be so lonely and 
cold and hungry, and now, oh, just think what 
you have done for me ! Please let me say just 
these words. It seems as if I ought to say 
them. Thank you — thank you — thank you! 

The Little Girl in the Attic. 

81 


SARA CREWE; OR 

The next morning she left this on the 
little table, and it was taken away with the 
other things; so she felt sure the magician 
had received it, and she was happier for 
the thought. 

A few nights later a very odd thing hap- 
pened. She found something in the room 
which she certainly would never have ex- 
pected. When she came in as usual she 
saw something small and dark in her chair, 
— an odd, tiny figure, which turned toward 
her a little, weird-looking, wistful face. 

^‘Why, it's the monkey !" she cried. ‘‘It 
is the Indian Gentleman’s monkey ! WTiere 
can he have come from?” 

It was the monkey, sitting up and looking 
so like a mite of a child that it really was 
quite pathetic; and very soon Sara found 
out how he happened to be in her room. 
The skylight was open, and it was easy to 
guess that he had crept out of his master’s 
82 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

garret-window, which was only a few feet 
away and perfectly easy to get in and out 
of, even for a climber less agile than a mon- 
key. He had probably climbed to the 
garret on a tour of investigation, and get- 
ting out upon the roof, and being attracted 
by the light in Sara’s attic, had crept in. 
At all events this seemed quite reasonable, 
and there he was; and when Sara went to 
him, he actually put out his queer, elfish 
little hands, caught her dress, and jumped 
into her arms. 

“Oh, you queer, poor, ugly, foreign little 
thing!” said Sara, caressing him. “I can’t 
help liking you. You look like a sort of 
baby, but I am so glad you are not, because 
your mother could not be proud of you, 
and nobody would dare to say you were 
like any of your relations. But I do like 
you; you have such a forlorn little look in 
your face. Perhaps you are sorry you are 
83 


SARA CREWE; OR 

SO Ugly, and it’s always on your mind. I 
wonder if you have a mind?” 

The monkey sat and looked at her while 
she talked, and seemed much interested in 
her remarks, if one could judge by his eyes 
and his forehead, and the way he moved 
his head up and down, and held it sideways 
and scratched it with his little hand. He 
examined Sara quite seriously, and anx- 
iously, too. He felt the stuff of her dress, 
touched her hands, climbed up and exam- 
ined her ears, and then sat on her shoulder 
holding a lock of her hair, looking mournful 
but not at all agitated. Upon the whole, 
he seemed pleased with Sara. 

“But I must take you back,” she said to 
him, “though I’m sorry to have to do it. 
Oh, the company you would be to a per- 
son!” 

She lifted him from her shoulder, set him 
on her knee, and gave him a bit of cake. 

84 



L_ — 

“The monkey seemed much interested in her remarks.” 






UTtlAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

He sat and nibbled it, and then put his 
head on one side, looked at her, wrinkled 
his forehead, and then nibbled again, in 
the most companionable manner. 

“But you must go home,” said Sara at 
last; and she took him in her arms to carry 
him downstairs. Evidently he did not 
want to leave the room, for as they reached 
the door he clung to her neck and gave a 
little scream of anger. 

“You mustn’t be an ungrateful monkey,” 
said Sara. “You ought to be fondest of 
your own family. I am sure the Lascar is 
good to you.” 

Nobody saw her on her way out, and 
very soon she was standing on the Indian 
Gentleman’s front steps, and the Lascar 
had opened the door for her. 

“I found your’ monkey in my room,” she 
said in Hindustani. “I think he got in 
through the window.” 

85 


SARA CREWE; OR 


The man began a rapid outpouring of 
thanks; but, just as he was in the midst of 
them, a fretful, hollow voice was heard 
through the open door of the nearest room. 
The instant he heard it the Lascar disap- 
peared, and left Sara still holding the mon- 
key. 

It was not many moments, however, be- 
fore he came back bringing a message. 
His master had told him to bring Missy 
into the library. The Sahib was very ill, 
but he wished to see Missy. 

Sara thought this odd, but she remem- 
bered reading stories of Indian gentlemen 
who, having no constitutions, were ex- 
tremely cross and full of whims, and who 
must have their own way. So she followed 
the Lascar. , 

When she entered the room the Indian 
Gentleman was lying on an easy chair, 
propped up with pillows. He looked fright- 
86 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

fully ill. His yellow face was thin, and his 
eyes were hollow. He gave Sara a rather 
curious look — it was as if she wakened in 
him some anxious interest. 

“You live next door?” he said. 

“Yes,” answered Sara. “I live at Miss 
Minchin’s.” 

“She keeps a boarding-school?” 

“Yes,” said Sara. 

“And you are one of her pupils?” 

Sara hesitated a moment. 

“I don’t know exactly what I am,” she 
replied. 

“Why not?” asked the Indian Gentle- 
man. 

The monkey gave a tiny squeak, and 
Sara stroked him. 

“At first,” she said, “I was a pupil and 
a parlor boarder; but now ” 

“What do you mean by ‘at first’?” 
asked the Indian Gentleman. 

87 


SARA CREWE; OR 


“When I was first taken there by my 
papa.” 

“Well, what has happened since then?” 
said the invalid, staring at her and knitting 
his brows with a puzzled expression. 

“My papa died,” said Sara. “He lost 
all his money, and there was none left for 
me — ^and there was no one to take care of 
me or pay Miss Minchin, so ” 

“So you were sent up into the garret and 
neglected, and made into a half-starved lit- 
tle drudge !” put in the Indian Gentleman. 
“That is about it, isn’t it?” 

The color deepened on Sara’s cheeks. 

“There was no one to take care of me, 
and no money,” she said. “I belong to 
nobody.” 

“What did your father mean by losing 
his money?” said the gentleman, fretfully. 

The red in Sara’s cheeks grew deeper, 
and she fixed her odd eyes on the yellow 
face. 


88 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

“He did not lose it himself,” she said. 
“He had a friend he was fond of, and it 
was his friend who took his money. I 
don’t know how. I don’t understand. He 
trusted his friend too much.” 

She saw the invalid start — ^the strangest 
start — as if he had been suddenly fright- 
ened. Then he spoke nervously and ex- 
citedly: 

“That’s an old story,” he said. “It 
happens every day; but sometimes those 
who are blamed — those who do the wrong 
— don’t intend it, and are not so bad. It 
may happen through a mistake — a miscal- 
culation; they may not be so bad.” 

“No,” said Sara, “but the suffering is 
just as bad for the others. It killed my 
papa.” 

The Indian Gentleman pushed aside some 
of the gorgeous wraps that covered him. 

“Come a little nearer, and let me look 
at you,” he said. 


89 


SARA CREWE; OR 

His voice sounded very strange; it had a 
more nervous and excited tone than before. 
Sara had an odd fancy that he was half 
afraid to look at her. She came and stood 
nearer, the monkey clinging to her and 
watching his master anxiously over his 
shoulder. 

The Indian Gentleman’s hollow, restless 
eyes fixed themselves on her. 

“Yes,” he said at last. “Yes; I can see 
it. Tell me your father’s name.” 

“His name was Ralph Crewe,” said Sara. 
“Captain Crewe. Perhaps,” — a sudden 
thought flashing upon her, — “perhaps you 
may, have heard of him? He died in In- 
dia.” 

The Indian Gentleman sank back upon 
his pillows. He looked very weak, and 
seemed out of breath. 

“Yes,” he said, “I knew him. I was his 
friend. I meant no harm. If he had only 
90 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

lived he would have known. It turned out 
well after all. He was a fine young fel- 
low. I was fond of him. I will make it 
right. Call — call the man.’’ 

Sara thought he was going to die. But 
there was no need to call the Lascar. He 
must have been waiting at the door. He 
was in the room and by his master’s side 
in an instant. He seemed to know what 
to do. He lifted the drooping head, and 
gave the invalid something in a small glass. 
The Indian Gentleman lay panting for a 
few minutes, and then he spoke in an ex- 
hausted but eager voice, addressing the 
Lascar in Hindustani: 

‘‘Go for Carmichael,” he said. “Tell 
him to come here at once. Tell him I have 
found the child!” 

When Mr. Carmichael arrived (which oc- 
curred in a very few minutes, for it turned 
out that he was no other than the father 
91 


SARA CREWE; OR 


of the Large Family across the street), Sara 
went home, and was allowed to take the 
monkey with her. She certainly did not 
sleep very much that night, though the 
monkey behaved beautifully, and did not 
disturb her in the least. It was not the 
monkey that kept her awake — ^it was her 
thoughts, and her wonders as to what the 
Indian Gentleman had meant when he said, 
“Tell him I have found the child.” “What 
child?” Sara kept asking herself. “I was 
the only child there; but how had he found 
me, and why did he want to find me ? And 
what is he going to do, now I am found? 
Is it something about my papa? Do I 
belong to somebody? Is he one of my re- 
lations? Is something going to happen?” 

But she found out the very next day, in 
the morning; and it seemed that she had 
been living in a story even more than she 
had imagined. First, Mr. Carmichael came 
92 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 


and had an interview with Miss Minchin. 
And it appeared that Mr. Carmichael, be- 
sides occupying the important situation of 
father to the Large Family was a lawyer, 
and had charge of the affairs of Mr. Car- 
risford — which was the real name of the 
Indian Gentleman — and, as Mr. Carris- 
ford’s lawyer, Mr. Carmichael had come to 
explain something curious to Miss Minchin 
regarding Sara. But, being the father of 
the Large Family, he had a very kind and 
fatherly feeling for children; and so, after 
seeing Miss Minchin alone, what did he do 
but go and bring across the square his rosy, 
motherly, warm-hearted wife, so that she 
herself might talk to the little lonely girl, 
and tell her everything in the best and 
most motherly way. 

And then Sara learned that she was to 
be a poor little drudge and outcast no more, 
and that a great change had come in her 
93 


SARA CREWE; OR 


fortunes; for all the lost fortune had come 
back to her, and a great deal had even been 
added to it. It was Mr. Carrisford who 
had been her father's friend, and who had 
made the investments which -had caused 
him the apparent loss of his money; but it 
had so happened that after poor young 
Captain Crewe's death one of the invest- 
ments which had seemed at the time the 
very worst had taken a sudden turn, and 
proved to be such a success that it had 
been a mine of wealth, and had more than 
doubled the Captain's lost fortune, as well 
as making a fortune for Mr. Carrisford 
himself. But Mr. Carrisford had been very 
unhappy. He had truly loved his poor, 
handsome, generous young friend, and the 
knowledge that he had caused his death 
had weighed upon him always, and broken 
both his health and .spirit. The worst of 
it had been that, when first he thought him- 
94 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 


self and Captain Crewe ruined, he had lost 
courage and gone away because he was 
not brave enough to face the consequences 
of what he had done, and so he had not 
even known where the young soldier’s little 
girl had been placed. When he wanted to 
find her, and make restitution, he could 
discover no trace of her; and the certainty 
that she was poor and friendless somewhere 
had made him more miserable than ever. 
When he had taken the house next to Miss 
Minchin’s he had been so ill and wretched 
that he had for the time given up the 
search. His troubles and the Indian cli- 
mate had brought him almost to death’s 
door — ^indeed, he had not expected to live 
more than a few months. And then one 
day the Lascar had told him about Sara’s 
speaking Hindustani, and gradually he had 
begun to take a sort of interest in the for- 
lorn child, tliough he had only caught a 
95 


SARA CREWE; OR 


glimpse of her once or twice and he had 
not connected her with the child of his 
friend, perhaps because he was too languid 
to think much about anything. But the 
Lascar had found out something of Sara’s 
unhappy little life, and about the garret. 
One evening he had actually crept out of 
his own garret-window and looked into 
hers, which was a very easy matter, be- 
cause, as I have said, it was only a few feet 
away — and he had told his master what he 
had seen, and in a moment of compassion 
the Indian Gentleman had told him to take 
into the wretched little room such comforts 
as he could carry from ' the one window to 
the other. And the Lascar, who had de- 
veloped an interest in, and an odd fondness 
for, the child who had spoken to him in his 
ovra tongue, had been pleased with the 
work; and, having the silent swiftness and 
agile movements of many of his race, he 
had made his evening journeys across the 
96 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

few feet of roof from garret-window to gar- 
ret-window, without any trouble at all. 
He had watched Sara’s movements until 
he knew exactly when she was absent from 
her room and when she returned to it, and 
so he had been able to calculate the best 
times for his work. Generally he had made 
them in the dusk of the evening; but once 
or twice, when he had seen her go out on 
errands, he had dared to go over in the 
daytime, being quite sure that the garret 
was never entered by any one but herself. 
His pleasure in the work and his reports of 
the results had added to the invalid’s in- 
terest in it, and sometimes the master had 
found the planning gave him something to 
think of, which made him almost forget 
his weariness and pain. And at last, when 
Sara brought home the truant monkey, he 
had felt a wish to see her, and then her like- 
ness to her father had done the rest. 

“And now, my dear,” said good Mrs. 

97 


SARA CREWE; OR 

Carmichael, patting Sara’s hand, “all your 
troubles are over, I am sure, and you are 
to come home with me and be taken care 
of as if you were one of my own little girls; 
and we are so pleased to think of having 
you with us until everything is settled, and 
Mr. Carrisford is better. The excitement 
of last night has made him very weak, but 
we really think he will get well, now that 
such a load is taken from his mind. And 
when he is stronger, I am sure he will be 
as kind to you as your own papa would, 
have been. He has a very good heart, and 
he is fond of children — ^and he has no family 
at all. But we must make you happy and 
rosy, and you must learn to play and run 

about, as my little girls do ’’ 

“As your little girls do?” said Sara. “I 
wonder if I could. I used to watch them 
and wonder what it was like. Shall I feel 
as if I belonged to somebody?” 

98 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

“Ah, my love, yes! — ^yes!'’ said Mrs. 
Carmichael; “dear me, yes!'’ And her 
motherly blue eyes grew quite moist, and 
she suddenly took Sara in her arms and 
kissed her. That very night, before she 
went to sleep, Sara had made the acquain- 
tance of the entire Large Family, and such 
excitement as she and the monkey had 
caused in that joyous circle could hardly be 
described. There was not a child in the 
nursery, from the Eton boy who was the 
eldest, to the baby who was the youngest, 
who had not laid some offering on her 
shrine. All the older ones knew something 
of her wonderful story. She had been born 
in India; she had been poor and lonely and 
unhappy, and had lived in a garret and been 
treated unkindly; and now she was to be 
rich and happy, and be taken care of. They 
were so sorry for her, and so delighted and 
curious about her, all at once. The girls 
99 


SARA CREWE; OR 


wished to be with her constantly, and the 
little boys wished to be told about India; 
the second baby, with the short round legs, 
simply sat and stared at her and the mon- 
key, possibly wondering why she had not 
brought a hand-organ with her. 

“I shall certainly wake up presently,” 
Sara kept saying to herself. “This one 
must be a dream. The other one turned 
out to be real; but this couldn’t be. But, 
oh ! how happy it is ! ” 

And even when she went to bed, in the 
bright, pretty room not far from Mrs. Car- 
michael’s own, and Mrs. Carmichael came 
and kissed her and patted her and tucked 
her in cozily, she was not sure that she 
would riot wake up in the garret in the 
morning. 

“And, oh, Charles dear,” Mrs. Car- 
michael said to her husband, when she 
went downstairs to him, “we must get 
100 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

that lonely look out of her eyes ! It isn’t 
a child’s look at all. I couldn’t bear to 
see it in one of my own children. What 
the poor little love must have had to bear 
in that dreadful woman’s house ! But, 
surely, she will forget it in time.” 

But though the lonely look passed away 
from Sara’s face, she never quite forgot the 
garret at Miss Minchin’s; and, indeed, she 
always liked to remember the wonderful 
night when the tired princess crept up- 
stairs, cold and wet, and opening the door 
found fairy-land waiting for her. And 
there was no one of the many stories she 
was always being called upon to tell in the 
nursery of the Large Family which was 
more popular than that particular one; and 
there was no one of whom the Large Family 
were so fond as of Sara. Mr. Carrisford 
did not die, but recovered, and Sara went 
to live with him; and no real princess could 
101 


SARA CREWE; OR 

have been better taken care of than she 
was. It seemed that the Indian Gentle- 
man could not do enough to make her 
happy, and to repay her for the past; and 
the Lascar was her devoted slave. As her 
odd little face grew brighter, it grew so 
pretty and interesting that Mr. Carrisford 
used to sit and watch it many an evening, 
as they sat by the fire together. 

They became great friends, and they 
used to spend hours reading and talking 
together; and, in a very short time, there 
was no pleasanter sight to the Indian Gen- 
tleman than Sara sitting in her big chair 
on the , opposite side of the hearth, with a 
book on her knee and her soft, dark hair 
timibling over her warm cheeks. She had 
a pretty habit of looking up at him sud- 
denly, with a bright smile, and then he 
would often say to her: 

“Are you happy, Sara?” 

102 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

And then she would answer: 

“I feel like a real princess. Uncle Tom.” 

He had told her to call him Uncle Tom. 

“There doesn’t seem to be an5dhing left 
to ‘suppose,’” she added. 

There was a little joke between them 
that he was a magician, and so could do 
anything he liked; and it was one of his 
pleasures to invent plans to surprise her 
with enjoyments she had not thought of. 
Scarcely a day passed in which he did not 
do something new for her. Sometimes she 
found new flowers in her room; sometimes 
a fanciful little gift tucked into some odd 
corner; sometimes a new book on her pil- 
low; — once as they sat together in the eve- 
ning they heard the scratch of a heavy 
paw on the door of the room, and when 
Sara went to find out what it was, there 
stood a great dog — a splendid Russian boar- 
hound with a grand silver and gold collar. 

103 


SARA CREWE; OR 


Stooping to read the inscription upon the 
collar, Sara was delighted to read the 
words: “I am Boris; I serve the Princess 
Sara/’ 

Then there was a sort of fairy nursery 
arranged for the entertainment of the 
juvenile members of the Large Family, 
who were always coming to see Sara and 
the Lascar and the monkey. Sara was as 
fond of the Large Family as they were of 
her. She soon felt as if she were a member 
of it, and the companionship of the healthy, 
happy children was very good for her. All 
the children rather looked up to her and 
regarded her as the cleverest and most 
brilliant of creatures — ^particularly after it 
was discovered that she not only knew 
stories of every kind, and could invent new 
ones at a moment’s notice, but that she 
could help with lessons, and speak French 
and German, and discourse with the Las- 
car in Hindustani. 


104 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

It was rather a painful experience for 
Miss Minchin to watch her ex-pupil’s for- 
tunes, as she had the daily opportunity to 
do, and to feel that she had made a serious 
mistake, from a business point of view. 
She had even tried to retrieve it by sug- 
gesting that Sara’s education should be 
continued under her care, and had gone to 
the length of making an appeal to the child 
herself. 

“I have always been very fond of you,” 
she said. 

Then Sara fixed her eyes upon her and 
gave her one of her odd looks. 

“Have you?” she answered. 

“Yes,” said Miss Minchin. “Amelia 
and I have always said you were the clev- 
erest child we had with us, and I am sure 
we could make you happy — as a parlor 
boarder.” 

Sara thought of the garret and the day 
her ears were boxed, — and of that other 
105 


SARA CREWE; OR 


day, that dreadful, desolate day when she 
had been told that she belonged to nobody; 
that she had no home and no friends, — 
and she kept her eyes fixed on Miss Min- 
chin's face. 

“You know why I would not stay with 
you,'' she said. 

And it seems probable that Miss Min- 
chin did, for after that simple answer she 
had not the boldness to^pursue the subject. 
She merely sent in a bill for the expense of 
Sara's education and support, and she 
made it quite large enough. And because 
Mr. Carrisford thought Sara would wish it 
paid, it was paid. When Mr. Carmichael 
paid it he had a brief interview with Miss 
Minchin in which he expressed his opinion 
with much clearness and force; and it is 
quite certain that Miss Minchin did not 
enjoy the conversation. 

Sara had been about a month with Mr. 

106 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

Carrisford, and had begun to realize that 
her happiness was not a dream, when one 
night the Indian Gentleman . . ’ that she 
sat a long time with her cheek on her hand 
looking at the fire. 

“What are you ‘supposing,’ Sara?” he 
asked. Sara looked up with a bright color 
on her cheeks. 

“I was ‘supposing,’” she said; “I was 
remembering that hungry day, and a child 
I saw.” 

“But there were a great many hungry 
days,” said the Indian Gentleman, with a 
rather sad tone in his voice. “Which hun- 
gry day was it?” 

“I forgot you didn’t know,” said Sara. 
“It was the day I found the things in my 
garret.” 

And then she told him the story of the 
bun-shop, and the fourpence, and the child 
who was hungrier than herself; and some- 
107 


SARA CREWE; OR 

how as she told it, though she told it very 
simply indeed, the Indian Gentleman found 
it necessary to shade his eyes with his hand 
and look down at the floor. 

“And I was ‘supposing’ a kind of plan,” 
said Sara, when she had finished; “I 
was thinking I would like to do some- 
thing.” 

“What is it?” said her guardian in a low 
tone. “You may do anything you like to 
do. Princess.” 

“I was wondering,” said Sara, — “you 
know you say I have a great deal of money 
— ^and I was wondering if I coul(^go and 
see the bun-woman and tell her that if, 
when hungry children — ^particularly on 
those dreadful days — come and sit on the 
steps or look in at the window, she would 
just call them in and give them something 
to eat, she might send the bills to me and 
I would pay them — could I do that?” 

108 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS KINCHIN’S 

“You shall do it to-morrow morning,” 
said the Indian Gentleman. 

“Thank you,” said Sara; “you see I 
know what it is to be hungry, and it is very 
hard when one can’t even pretend it away.” 

“Yes, yes, my dear,” said the Indian 
Gentleman. “Yes, it must be. Try to 
forget it. Come and sit on this footstool 
near my knee, and only remember you are 
a princess.” 

“Yes,” said Sara, “and I can give buns 
and bread to the Populace.” And she 
went and sat on the stool, and the Indian 
Gentleman (he used to like her to call him 
that, too, sometimes, — ^in fact very often) 
drew her small, dark head down upon his 
knee and stroked her hair. 

The next morning a carriage drew up 
before the door of the baker’s shop, and a 
gentleman and a little girl got out, — oddly 
enough, just as the bun-woman was put- 
109 


SARA CREWE; OR 


ting a tray of smoking hot buns into the 
window. When Sara entered the shop the 
woman turned and looked at her and, leav- 
ing the buns, came and stood behind the 
counter. For a moment she looked at 
Sara verj”^ hard indeed, and then her good- 
natured face lighted up. 

“I’m that sure I remember you, miss,’’ 

she said. “And yet ’’ 

“Yes,” said Sara, “once you gave me 
six buns for fourpence, and— — ” 

“And you gave five of ’em to a beggar- 
child,” said the woman. “I’ve always re- 
membered it. I couldn’t make it out at 
first. I beg pardon, sir, but there’s not 
many young people that notices a hungry 
face in that way, and I’ve thought of it 
many a time. Excuse the liberty, miss, but 
you look rosier and better than you did 
that day.” 

“I am better, thank you,” said Sara, 

no 





“He drew her small, dark head down upon his knee and stroked 

her hair.” 




WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

“and — and I am happier, and I have come 
to ask you to do something for me/’ 

“Me, miss !” exlaimed the woman, “why, 
bless you, yes, miss! What can I do?” 

And then Sara made her little proposal, 
and the woman listened to it with an aston- 
ished face. 

“Why, bless me!” she said, when she 
had heard it all. “Yes, miss, it’ll be a 
pleasure to me to do it. I am a working 
woman, myself, and can’t afford to do 
much on my own account, and there’s 
sights of trouble on every side; but if you’ll 
excuse me. I’m bound to say I’ve given 
many a bit of bread away since that wet 
afternoon, just along o’ thinldn’ of you. 
An’ how wet an’ cold you was, an’ how 
you looked, — an’ yet you give away your 
hot buns as if you was a princess.” 

The Indian Gentleman smiled involun- 
tarily, and Sara smiled a little too. “She 
111 


SARA CREWE; OR 


looked so hungry,” she said. “She was 
hungrier than I was.” 

“She was starving,” said the woman. 
“Many’s the time she’s told me of it since 
— ^how she sat there in the wet, and felt as 
if a wolf was a-tearing at her poor young 
insides.” 

“Oh, have you seen her since then?” 
exclaimed Sara. “Do you know where she 
is?” 

“I know!” said the woman. “Why, 
she’s in that there back room now, miss, 
an’ has been for a month, an’ a decent, 
well-meaning girl she’s going to turn out, 
an’ such a help to me in the day shop, an’ 
in the kitchen, as you’d scarce believe, 
knowing how she’s lived.” 

She stepped to the door of the little back 
parlor and spoke; and the next minute a 
girl carhe out and followed her behind the 
counter. And actually it was the beggar- 
112 


WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN’S 

child, clean and neatly clothed, and look- 
ing as if she had not been hungry for a 
long time. She looked shy, but she had a 
nice face, now that she was no longer a 
savage; and the wild look had gone from 
her eyes. And she knew Sara in an in- 
stant, and stood and looked at her as if 
she could never look enough. 

“You see,” said the woman, “I told her 
to come here when she was hungry, and 
when she’d come I’d give her odd jobs to 
do, an’ I found she was willing, an’ some- 
how I got to like her; an’ the end of it was 
I’ve given her a place an’ a home, an’ she 
helps me, an’ behaves as well, an’ is as 
thankful as a girl can be. Her name’s 
Anne — ^she has no other.” 

The two children stood and looked at 
each other a few moments. In Sara’s eyes 
a new thought was growing. 

“I’m glad you have such a good home,” 
113 


SARA CREWE 


she said. “Perhaps Mrs. Brown will let 
you give the buns and bread to the children 
— ^perhaps you would like to do it — ^because 
you know what it is to be hungry, too.” 

“Yes, miss,” said the girl. 

And somehow Sara felt as if she under- 
stood her, though the girl said nothing 
more, and only stood still and looked, and 
looked after her as she went out of the 
shop and got into the carriage and drove 
away. 


I 


114 


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Illustrated, l2mo. $1.35 net 

“A stirring story of the Civil War. ... A splendid book.” 

— Chicago Record-Herald, 

A Midshipman in the Pacific 

His Adventures in Whaler, Trader, and Frigate 

Illustrated. 12mo. %1.3S net 

Here is a boy that is a boy, even when he is the hero of a stirring tale of 
adventure.” — The Outlook, 

In the War with Mexico 

A Midshipman* s Adventures on Sea and Shore 

Illustrated by W. T. Aylward. $1.35 net 

His book is one to stir the blood of every boy and make him rejoice 
that he is an American.” — Hashville American, 

In the Wasp’s Nest 

A Story of a Sea Waif in the War of 1812 

Illustrated by Rufus F. Zogbaum. $1.35 net 

“A breezy narrative that will stir the pulses of the reader.” 

— Cleveland Plain Dealer, 

BY JESSIE PEABODY FROTHINGHAM 
Sea Wolves of Seven Shores 

Illustrated. 12mo. $1.20 net 

“ Every boy that loves a pirate will want to read ‘ Sea Wolves of Seven 
Shores.’ ” — New York Sun. 

Sea Fighters from Drake to Farragut 

Illustrated. 12mo. $1.20 net 

“ Exactly the present to give a clever boy who has the boy’s love for 
a brave adventure and likes to read of gallant actions on sea and land.” 

• — The Congregationalist, 

BY MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL 
Twelve Naval Captains 

Illustrated. 12mo. $1.25 net 

*®A capital collection of yarns. . . . She tells the story of her heroes in 
an admirable tone of impartiality.” — The Academy. 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, NEW YORK 


FAMOUS OUTDOOR BOOKS 


BY ERNEST THOMPSON SETON 

Illustrated by the author 

“ They all have that fascinating quality which he manages to throw around 
all his stories.” — Brooklyn Eagle. 


Animal Heroes Lives of the Hunted^ 
Wild Animals I Have Known 

Each of the above. Square 12mo. $1.75 net 

Monarch, the Big Bear of Tallac 

“A fascinating account of a bear family.” — Providence Journal. 

The Trail of the Sandhill Stag 

With numerous drawings by the author. Each SO cents net 

“ I had fancied that no one could touch ‘ The Jungle Book ’ for a gener- 
ation at least, but Mr. Seton has done it.” — Bliss Carman, in The Bookman, 


BY GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL 
Blackfeet Indian Stories 

With frontispiece and cover by N. C. Wyeth. $1.00 net 

Twenty-five or more real Blackfeet Indian folk-lore stories gathered during 
years of intimate study of the Indians. 

The Wolf Hunters 

A Story of the Buffalo Plains 

I Illustrated. $1.35 net 

The true adventures and thrilling experiences of three young cavalrymen 
who spent the winter of 1861-62 in hunting wolves on the Western Plains, 

African Adventure Stories 

By J. Alden Loring, field naturalist to the Roosevelt 
African Expedition 
With a forezvord by Theodore Roosevelt 
Illustrated. 8vo. $1.50 net 

An illustrated book with thrills for any boy, grown up or growing.” 

— New York World. 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, NEW YORK 















